Quite a selection …

You don’t need a ticket to get up to Tightwad Hill. It seems the only requirement for admission is a case of beer. There’s about 15 different brands I’ve seen so far. It’s about 10 minutes before kickoff, the crowd has swelled to about 400. And people are still making their way up the Hill. There are some students up here, but mostly people looking to enjoy a good time and some football — for free. The main goal is not to go sliding down the hill. There is a steep dropoff below the flat portion where people sit, and the bigger the crowd gets, the lower people have to start sitting. They say at least one person goes sliding down each game. My money’s on the guy wearing the green army fatigues and what looks to be welding glasses. He keeps offering people a puff on his cigar. So far nobody’s taken him up on it. Shocker. … The first Stanford fans have just been spotted about five minutes before kickoff, wearing the Cardinal colors of course. They were immediately greeted by the “Take off that red shirt!” chant that gets directed at anybody wearing any shade of red at a Cal sporting event. Brave souls …